See How They Track Polar Bears in Russia

June 2, 2017 - See how a team of biologists track and collar wild polar bears in the Russian Arctic. It is estimated that one third of the world's polar bear population is located in Russia. However, not much is yet known about their migratory patterns. That's why researchers from Polar Bears International, WWF Russia, and A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution are utilizing radio tracking technology to follow polar bears onto the sea ice and to study any effects climate change and melting ice may have on their existence.

Ivan: Approximately you have one-third part of the total of the world's population of polar bears in Russia.

But, because of our very remote places and our huge territory, it means that we don't have the possibility to calculate polar bear numbers in all our area.

Now we are on the south coastal line of the Kara Sea.

It's a part of Russian Arctic. The middle sea of our Arctic seas.

Here our group is trying to investigate the migration routes of polar bears.

We try to find animals and put radio collars on the females.

Ilya: Today, no open ice holes or bears were found.

Tomorrow we have two places to possibly tranquilize a bear.

That ice-water boundary could be a bear cluster.

Zhen: In this section of the dart, you have the tranquilizer.

In principal, the maximum range is 20-30 meters. You can shoot further, but its more difficult.

Ilya: The Kara Sea, we have zero. We do not know the population. We do not know the number of bears here. For us it is a blank spot.

The last research in the Arctic beat the bear ended in 1974 when ice reconnaissance was still conducted in the Soviet Union during the ice reconnaissance. for the passage of ships as the number of polar bears was counted, after that all the data was lost.

Ivan: We have evidence of the growth of temperatures and we believe it will impact on polar bear populations.

They live only on the ice fields. And so if we don’t have ice fields, we will not have polar bears.

Ilya: We tagged a female last year. She still has her collar and it continues to send us data.

Because the ice cap is shrinking, bear populations can be displaced. Our task now is to understand whether polar bears, because of the winter migration, are displaced to us from Canada or Greenland, or if the bears are leaving from the Kara and Barents Sea populations to Greenland. This is shown by genetic analysis. That’s why we are here. We must catch a bear to do this.

See How They Track Polar Bears in Russia

June 2, 2017 - See how a team of biologists track and collar wild polar bears in the Russian Arctic. It is estimated that one third of the world's polar bear population is located in Russia. However, not much is yet known about their migratory patterns. That's why researchers from Polar Bears International, WWF Russia, and A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution are utilizing radio tracking technology to follow polar bears onto the sea ice and to study any effects climate change and melting ice may have on their existence.